On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 12:51 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > Oded Arbel wrote: > > Unfortunately, it requires bootstrapping with an existing > > JDK, and Sun's 1.6 or 1.7 (beta and alpha respectively) are recommended. > > As neither of these are free software I don't think the new "Open"JDK > > qualifies as free software either, regardless of the licensing. > > > According to the same logic, neither is GCC. After all, in order to > compile the first version of GCC, a proprietary compiler was used. > > If you can create a first version of the openjdk from this bootstrapped > environment, and then use the first version to create a second version, > then it is free by any standard you may wish to apply.
Problem is - you can't recreate the openjdk using only a previously built openjdk, because openjdk is not a fully functional runtime environment (or Java Development Kit, regardless of the "JDK" part of "OpenJDK") - it does not include the Java Class Library, which must be obtained separately. So you can compile openjdk using a Sun's non-free JDK, or using openjdk combined with Sun's non-free Java class library, but you can't build it with only free tools, no matter what bootstrap process you're using. -- Oded ::.. Rubber bands have snappy endings! ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
